Southern and Middle-Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF), on Monday, insisted that Nigeria must be restructured to avert break up, vowing that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led regime cannot cow it by using “cantonment approach” to national issues, not “even with threats of arrests or assassinations.”
SMBLF said this in a statement titled: “Stop Playing Pharaoh – SMBLF tells Buhari,” and jointly issued by Mr Yinka Odumakin for the South-West, Chief Guy Ikokwu (South-East), Senator Bassey Henshaw (South-South) and Dr Isuwa Dog (Middle-Belt).
The leaders gave this vow while reacting to what they described as “the very uncouth and rude warning issued by Garba Shehu against patriotic organizations and responsible individuals like the respected Pastor E. A. Adeboye that this government should restructure the country to avert a break- up.”
The presidency, in its response, made available by Shehu described such warning coming from prominent Nigerians as unpatriotic outbursts and unhelpful as well as unwarranted, saying the Buhari government woul not succumb to threats and take any decision out of pressure at a time when the nation’s full attention was needed to deal with the security challenges in the land.
It further said the government would not take any decision against the interests of 200 million Nigerians, who were the president’s first responsibility under the constitution, out of fear or threats especially in this hour of health crisis.
SMBLF, while noting that Shehu sounded much like Pharaoh’s spokesman in Ancient Egypt for dismissing the recurring agitations as unpatriotic outbursts, expressed disappointment that the Buhari regime chose to talk down on Nigeria in very intemperate language instead of giving assurances about rebuilding the country towards inclusivity.
The leaders stated clearly that they were not prepared to be cowed by the government and would also not accept turning them to “second class citizens on our land not even with threats of arrests or assassinations.”
“Should we be clapping for the government and not talk when the Customs appoints 8 (eight) Deputy Comptrollers from a section of the country? Are we expected to be saying well done when DSS recruits 535 cadets from North-West and North-East and only 93 are from the entire South and North-Central?
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“Are we to keep quiet when the law setting up PENCOM was clear on succession at directors level, you go and bring somebody from North-East to replace a South-East eased out DG? SMBLF queried.
“If Garba Shehu is not lexically challenged, he should know that those calling for restructuring are more patriotic than those running Nigeria towards implosion. Patriotism is to corporate Nigeria for all and not the sectional idea of Nigeria by the nepotists,” the Forum said.
SMBLF further vowed that it would succumb to what it termed the narrow idea of Nigeria being pursued by the Buhari government, saying it was fully assured that Nigeria would pass through such era, even as it insisted on restructuring the country now without further delay to avoid navigating the “path of implosion forewarned by patriots at home and abroad.”
“We will not succumb to their narrow idea of Nigeria, we are fully assured that this too shall come to pass.
“Therefore, let us restructure now and withdraw from the path of implosion forewarned by patriots at home and abroad,” the leaders counselled.
Restructuring: No threats of arrests, assassination will stop our agitations, SMBLF tells Buhari
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